In 2000 historian Christian Warren published Brush with Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning in which he introduced his construct of “toxic purity” relating to historic lead paint. Warren explains that in the early 1900s, US citizens (most well aware of the toxic nature of lead paint) still wanted pure lead paint—leaded paint with no adulterants or additives. When we think of lead paint today, we immediately associate it with the toxic side of this construct. Most consumers at that time, however, were worried about additional ingredients diluting the purity of lead paint.

One hundred twenty years ago consumers perceived lead paint to be the best. Consumers wanted to know the contents of the paint cans they purchased. If they contained ingredients such as water, benzene, chalk, or any oils other than linseed oil, many considered them to be inferior paints.¹ There were no labeling laws; consumers did not even know the net weight of a can of paint. Although there were no standards set by industry or the government at the turn of the last century, consumers were hoping to purchase linseed oil thoroughly mixed with pure white lead powder and maybe some colorants.²

A label from one of many regional white lead paint producers. https://www.npr.org/2016/04/06/473268312/before-it-was-dangerous-lead-was-the-miracle-metal-that-we-loved

North Dakota was the first state to fully address informing consumers about the contents of a can of paint.³ In 1905 the state legislature passed “An Act to Prevent the Adulteration & Deception in the Sale of White Lead and Mixed Paints.”⁴ The legislature put the responsibility for carrying out this act on the capable shoulders of Edwin F. Ladd, the “fighting” chemistry professor at the North Dakota Agricultural College (now North Dakota State University), who also oversaw the publication of five bulletins on the subject of paint, its composition, and  clinical tests of various brands of paints.

Historian Elwyn B. Robinson characterized Ladd as a zealous and courageous publicity seeker, outstanding in an era of progressive reformers.⁵ Ladd had already led the charge against food alteration at the college’s Experiment Station⁶, publishing his results in the station’s Bulletin 53. His work was important in the passage of the federal Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906.⁷

In his introduction to Bulletin 67 on white lead paints, Ladd calmly informs paint manufacturers who want to challenge his results published therein to “let the courts decide.”⁸

Dutch Boy logo and brand trademarked for the National Lead Company in 1907. Click the image to see the inside pages where happy children learned that lead was a most useful metal present in light bulbs, shoes, “tin” soldiers, baseballs, china, and other common household products.

In Bulletin 70 (1906) we learn the state court ruled in favor of the state’s right to regulate paint labeling. The Bulletin also provides the names of manufacturers who used up to 24 percent water in their paints, those who provided short weight adulterated or diluted lead in their paint composition, and those using up to 70 percent inert material, which was merely filler.⁹ In Bulletin 86 the Experiment Station analyzed many paints with mixed ingredients such as zinc oxide, a legitimate white lead substitute.¹⁰

At the time there were many small and regional paint manufacturers due to the cost of transportation of heavy ingredients. Ladd expected that manufacturers in the western half of the United States would provide inferior paints to those in the east, but found shocking results. Regardless of the region, “dope” paints were manufactured all over. North Dakota was the exception, as by the end of 1909 Ladd felt that the legal requirement to have truthful labels had greatly improved the quality of paint sold in the state.¹¹

1903 Advertisement for the New Jersey Zinc. Co. We wonder if master painters and others knew about the toxicity of lead in the paints they used at the turn of the twentieth century. Yes they certainly did, better than we can know today, as they felt the agony of stomach ulcers, intestinal binding, tooth loss, gout, and arthritis. Some symptoms sent them to their beds for weeks waiting out “painters colic” if they (or more likely their apprentices) inhaled or ingested too much of the chalky powder. From Warren, Brush with Death, 61, and Olga Khazan, “How Important Is Lead Poisoning to Becoming a Legendary Artist?” Atlantic, November 25, 2013,  https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/11/how-important-is-lead-poisoning-to-becoming-a-legendary-artist/281734/.

¹ E. F. Ladd and C. D. Holley, “Paints and Paint Products,” North Dakota Agricultural College Experiment Station Bulletin 67 (1906): 575–77.
² Christian Warren, Brush with Death: A Social History of Lead Poisoning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 44–45, 52–53. The first ready-mixed paint came from Sherwin-Williams in 1880, but some master painters were still having their apprentices mix barrels of dusty white lead into linseed oil in the early 1900s. “The First Paint Revolution,” Sherwin-Williams, [accessed July 11, 2018, https://www.sherwin-williams.com/painting-contractors/business-builders/paint-technology-and-application/sw-art-pro-paint-revolution].
³ Warren, Brush with Death, 54. Nebraska passed a paint labeling law in 1902. It was backed by the lead-based paint manufacturers, who wanted to influence consumers to think of any new paint formulas that introduced new ingredients as inferior to lead paint. The labels did not require the disclosure of the amount of white lead.
⁴ Laws Passed by the Ninth Session of the Legislation Assembly of the State of North Dakota, 1905, Chapter 8 SB 49, 13.
⁵ Elwyn B. Robinson, History of North Dakota (1966; repr., Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), 261.
⁶ https://library.ndsu.edu/ir/bitstream/handle/10365/23594/ndfr_19500501_v12_iss05_162.pdf
⁷ Warren, Brush with Death, 282.
⁸ Ladd and Holley, “Paints and Paint Products,” 575.
⁹ E. F. Ladd and C. D. Holley, “Paints and Their Composition,” North Dakota Agricultural College Experiment Station Bulletin 70 (1906): 53–65.
¹⁰ E. F. Ladd and G. A. Abbott, “Some Ready-Mixed Paints,” North Dakota Agricultural College Experiment Station Bulletin 86 (1909): 80–89.
¹¹ Ladd and Abbott, “Some Ready-Mixed Paints,” 80–81.

In processing and organizing collections to make them accessible to researchers, the staff at the State Archives stumbles across unique items with their own stories to tell. While many of these documents and photographs relate to prominent people from North Dakota, or those who spent time or rendered some service to the state, we sometimes find an interesting connection to an important figure in American history in unlikely places.

We recently made one such find. Probate case files are important archival records at the county level that find their way to the State Archives as county governments across North Dakota need to make room for more current records. Older records are sent to us for storage and preservation and are great tools for researchers (especially genealogists) to trace the history of an ancestor’s estate and find other relatives.

In September 2017, Barnes County transferred some of their older probate records to the State Archives. Bev Keesey, one of our volunteers, worked on processing them. One afternoon she stumbled upon Case #599 from 1885 related to Anne Charlotte Fenimore Cooper, daughter of James Fenimore Cooper, author of the Leatherstocking Series, which includes the novels The Pathfinder and The Last of the Mohicans.

Ms. Cooper’s probate case is an interesting read, as her heirs included her other surviving siblings, most who resided in and around the Cooperstown, New York, area. This begs the question: how did a descendant of one of America’s most influential nineteenth-century authors, with no known connection to our state, come to have a probate case in North Dakota? The likely answer links her to one of the major power players of North Dakota early settlement--the railroad.

Cooper’s probate case concerned, according to several case documents, “An undivided one-half interest in the North West quarter (N.W.1/4) [sic] of Section number Fourteen (14) in Township number One Hundred thirty-nine (139) North of Range Fifty-seven (57) West of the Fifth Principal Meridian, in Barnes County, North Dakota.”¹ This land is located southeast of Valley City and, based on the fact that Cooper has “An undivided one-half interest” in said tract of land, suggests that the land was part of the large swaths of land given to the Northern Pacific Railroad (NP) during the late nineteenth century along their route through North Dakota. That parcel of land was purchased in the Fargo land office by Anthony Gemmet on October 20, 1882.²

According to the case file, the interest Cooper held was valued at $1,500, which would be worth just over $39,000 today when adjusted for inflation. Further, John Noack, acting as administrator of the estate, was the petitioner to the court on the behalf of Cooper, who was deceased. As the case was probated, the land became Noack’s property, and, according to the Standard Atlas of Barnes County, North Dakota (1910), Noack (spelled Noach in the atlas) owned the entire northern half of the section in question, as well as the eastern half of section 12 in the same township.³

It is fascinating to see how a simple case related to a small piece of land in southeastern North Dakota can link investment, settlement, and the descendants of one of America’s most well-known authors. While I have no indication that Anne Cooper ever visited North Dakota, the connection of her (and by extension, her famous father) to the state is special, given the frontier nature of North Dakota in the late 1800s, North Dakota’s important role in the settlement of the West, and James Fenimore Cooper’s love of the frontier in American history.

View a PDF version of the case file.

¹ Anne Charlotte Fenimore Cooper probate case file, Barnes County Probate Case Files, State Historical Society of North Dakota.
² “Patent Details,” U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, General Land Office Records, accessed June 27, 2018, https://glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx?accession=ND0350….
³ Standard Atlas of Barnes County, North Dakota, Chicago:  Alden Publishing Co., 1910, 55.

The Former Governors’ Mansion is 132 years old. As a former residence, one thing is certain: many children have played in the attic playroom, frolicked on the spacious lawn, and enjoyed singing or playing the piano in the parlor. In fact, many phases of restoration have revealed marbles, play money, and even height marks scribbled on walls. At first glance, “play” today and yesterday may look quite different; try to find a child who isn’t engrossed in a video game or on some device.

But there are similarities. In addition to Angry Birds, children still enjoy marbles, storytelling, singing, and bean bag toss on the lawn. We are thrilled to share our increased focus on programming for young children.

With my background as an educator and children’s entertainer, I have enjoyed supplementing the already diverse programming at this state historic site with weekly and annual activities for children. For example, we have added Friday lawn games and music at noon during the summer, an annual Flag Day parade and flag making, kite making and flying, Dinosaur Day and other events. When “Fun Friday” began in June 2015, we hosted over 240 people that month just for a one-hour weekly event. We recently added Dinosaur Day; over 450 people came. The following day—Fun Friday—welcomed 61 more people. Though there is some preparation involved, those two events lasted a total of 3-3.5 hours. That’s more than 500 people in less than 24 hours for three hours of programming at a fairly small site in the heart of downtown Bismarck!

Dinosaur Day tail

High visitation numbers make everyone who works in our field happy. But no one works at a historic site just to rack up numbers. While historic sites offer much to learn or uncover, they also offer an abundance of something else: heart. We all have memories that make us happy, and the work of restoring, preserving, creating, and promoting memories (with a site) is what we do—even if they aren’t our own memories!

Here’s the secret: Memories don’t belong to only yesterday. At the risk of sounding like a bad pop song, memories are created constantly within us. To learn something new and establish something in one’s memory, the new stuff coming in has to latch onto something already “there.” If it doesn’t, it’s gone because it wasn’t assigned meaning to us while it lived for a few seconds in our minds.

Back to the Mansion. A large, green, somewhat daunting house that has the word “governor” in its description carries no real meaning to a young child—unless we attempt to give it meaning. If we can do this successfully, the child creates a memory. That’s where we come in.

Think back to a place you loved to visit as a child. There! Did you feel that? The “Ah, yes—that takes me back” feeling that warms the heart is why I am compelled to invite kids to sing on the west lawn stage every Friday at noon…or blow a toy trumpet in our Flag Day parade…or color homemade kites for Kite Day. We hope to inspire children at our events, and they will experience that warm feeling about our beloved Mansion and grounds.

Flag Day Parade

But this is no “Field of Dreams,” where we simply build it and expect them to come. Planning is fun, but spreading the word is multi-layered. Parents with young children are now “digital natives”—they grew up with social media and computers or phones, and this is where they get much of their information. An event can be seen and shared by thousands of people in a short time—like with Dinosaur Day. And when parents do come and see their child on stage singing in front of 50-100 people, you should see the phones start recording! The big, green, friendly mansion is the backdrop of film clips and photos sent all over the world to family and friends.

This site in the center of town is dignified, stately, and grand. We hope tomorrow’s adults also look at the Mansion with a warm feeling that comes with loving a special place filled with memories in the heart of their community.

Scattered all across the state, in almost every corner, our historic sites have something fun to offer for everyone. In addition to preserving and interpreting the history of these great places, we also offer dynamic educational programming for all ages. The summer of 2018 has seen two new programs take off –the Cycling History Highways series and the Junior Sheriff program at the Stutsman County Courthouse State Historic Site.

Cycling History Highways is a series of bicycle rides throughout the summer that merge cycling with historic tours and activities. On June 30, cyclists were treated to a guided tour of Chief Looking’s Village in Bismarck by Doug Wurtz, member of the North Dakota Archaeological Association. Cyclists then departed for Double Ditch Indian Village State Historic Site, with a unique water break at a tipi along the way. Upon arrival, the group partook in Native American games, atlatl throwing, and an interpretive tour.

Cyclists enjoying the view near Double Ditch State Historic Site on June 30

Two more rides are scheduled for the summer, with a Cold War themed ride planned for July 28 near Cooperstown and a ride from Fort Clark State Historic Site to Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site near Stanton on September 22. Cold War riders will be given guided tours of the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site, including the Oscar Zero missile alert facility and November-33 launch facility, before proceeding on to other Cold War sites. For the final ride, cyclists can immerse themselves in the historic world of the early American fur trade, joining Historical Society staff for guided tours and activities at both sites.

For more information and to pre-register for Cycling History Highways, please visit: history.nd.gov/cycling

In addition to cycling around historic sites, history enthusiasts of all ages can enjoy the Junior Sheriff program at the historic 1883 Stutsman County Courthouse—our newest addition to the historic sites lineup. Hopeful Junior Sheriffs can test their wits as they explore the oldest courthouse in North Dakota. Participants will answer questions, solve puzzles and record their answers. The new Junior Sheriffs will be sworn in and received their official badges! Appropriate for all ages, the Junior Sheriff program at the courthouse is a fun and free activity to try.

The official Junior Sheriff notebook and badge

For more information on the Stutsman County Courthouse State Historic Site and all of the events on schedule this summer, please visit: facebook.com/1883Courthouse

Guest Blogger: Guinn Hinman

Guinn Hinman was a Historic Sites Manager at the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

The North Dakota State Archives is the official repository of the historic records of state and local government entities in North Dakota. These records have permanent value because they document the organization, functions, and transactions of state and local governments. For example, after each administration, the Office of the Governor transfers all permanent records with historic value to the North Dakota State Archives for preservation. These records may contain proclamations, speeches, correspondence, executive orders, and files related to legislation. The North Dakota State Archives contains records from the governors of Dakota Territory through Governor Jack Dalrymple, who left office in December 2016.

As discussed in my last blog, What in the World is an Electronic Records Archivist?, management of digital records and their preservation is an extremely important and pressing issue in the world of archives. Archivists have been preserving paper and other resources for hundreds of years. Now records continue to shift to digital formats, and the shift is happening fast! This shift can be seen in the types of files in the different governors’ records.

From the territorial days and through the end of Governor Allen I. Olson’s time in office (1981-1984), all records were paper. We saw digital records begin with Governor George Sinner’s time in office (1985-1992), although it was actually only just a few floppy disks. The increase of digital files continues to be seen through the records of governors Ed Schafer (1992-2000), John Hoeven (2000-2010), and Jack Dalrymple (2010-2016).  As digital files increase, paper files decrease. Just 40 years ago, when Governor Art Link’s (1973-1981) records were transferred from his office to the State Archives, we received 334 cubic feet of paper records. Last year, when we received Governor Jack Dalrymple’s records, we only received 58 cubic feet of paper; however, we received thousands of digital files! With this trend, we might have more empty shelf space in our storage areas, but our digital shelf space will continue to fill and grow rapidly.

Researchers are able to visit the Orin G. Libby Reading Room at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum to study the paper records, and in the future, online access will available for an increasing number of digital files.

These records are great for researching the state’s leaders and government happenings, but they also provide an interesting history of various technologies used throughout Dakota Territory and North Dakota.  The following images illustrate this well:

This first image is a Thanksgiving proclamation by Newton Edmonds, second governor of Dakota Territory, written in a beautiful, swooping handwriting.

Newton Edmonds 1864 Thanksgiving proclamation (SHSND SA 30076)

The second image is a Thanksgiving proclamation made by Governor Jack Dalrymple in 2013. This proclamation was created digitally, printed, signed by the Governor and Secretary of State, scanned, and then transferred to the North Dakota State Archives.

Jack Dalrymple 2013 Thanksgiving proclamation (SHSND SA 32346)

My, how times have changed! Although I love looking at the beautiful handwriting, I can’t imagine living without a computer to type documents! It will be interesting to see how technology continues to change and what steps archivists will take to ensure the records are available for future generations.

Working in the Communication & Education Division here at the State Historical Society of North Dakota, I find that a lot of people are looking for sources to learn more about Native American culture and history. However, they often aren’t sure where to start. People are really interested in this part of our state’s story, but often didn’t learn much, if anything, in school. Not that they remember anyway. I like to direct them to the Essential Understandings.

A graphic rendering of the Essential Understandings found at teachingsofourelders.org.

This is a relatively new resource from the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction available through teachingsofourelders.org. This website makes videos and other information available to classrooms across the state. The videos feature elders from each of the reservations in North Dakota being interviewed about tribal traditions, stories, and history. The site also has lesson plans developed and vetted in conjunction with the tribes. The Essential Understandings identify the primary themes that tribes and educators want to make sure to convey to all K-12 students. The idea is to make Native American curriculum integrated into all subjects taught in school from math to music to science and history.

There are also great resources through the North Dakota Studies website where a person of any age or ability can begin to learn about the Native American tribes historically associated with what is now the state of North Dakota. The fourth grade unit for ND Studies is available at ndstudies.gov/gr4/american-indians-north-dakota. The eighth grade curriculum at ndstudies.gov/gr8 is also full of opportunities to learn about thousands of years of North Dakota history, up to the present day. There are also four digitized books covering each tribe that has a reservation based in North Dakota at ndstudies.gov/nd_indian_studies. These are all fantastic resources available free online through ND Studies at the State Historical Society of North Dakota.

The fourth grade unit on American Indians of North Dakota.

For learners with a more academic interest, the History of North Dakota by Elwyn Robinson is also available free online through the University of North Dakota at commons.und.edu/oers/1. Robinson is thought by many who study North Dakota to be one of the most influential scholars to tackle our state’s history. His interpretation continues to have a huge impact on how we think about the history and culture of North Dakota.

A display about Métis culture in the Innovation Gallery: Early Peoples at the ND Heritage Center and State Museum in Bismarck

We also like to encourage visitors to come and experience the exhibits and programs at the 57 historic sites and museums managed by the State Historical Society of North Dakota, sites at a number of state parks, national parks, and the reservations themselves. The United Tribes International Powwow, held annually the first weekend after Labor Day in Bismarck, is an excellent opportunity to learn about the culture and history of tribes from around the country.